The national runner set a new personal best time in a wet women's 400-metre event yesterday at the 19th Open International Athletics Tournament in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

She finished fourth in her Heat with a time of 1:00.04 to qualify for the final today.

Her previous best was 1:01.14 which she clocked during the 7th Southeast Asian (SEA) Youth Athletics Championships in Singapore in early May.

The 19-year-old, who will make history by becoming the first Bruneian female to compete at the Olympics, never saw it coming.

"I'm really happy for my time. I never expected it because of the heavy rain which caused a one hour delay. It was still raining at the time we ran and it made it difficult," said Maziah in an interview with The Brunei Times yesterday.

Asked if she can obtain a medal in the competition, she replied: "I don't want to think about it."

Maziah with Olympic-bound swimmer Anderson Lim Chee Wei being the other is a recipient of the London 2012 Olympic Scholarships.

Her partner in crime, Ak Hafiy Tajuddin Pg Rositi also made it through to the final after finishing first in his semi-final race of the men's 400m event.

His time was not known as of press time.

The July 10-12 event is the last competition for the national runners to be game-ready for the July 27-Aug 12 London Olympics.

A total of 29 teams nine foreign and 20 domestic will be competing for top honours at the tournament.

Besides Brunei, the other foreign countries are Malaysia, South Korea, Thailand, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Singapore, Myanmar and the Philippines.

Lim will be the only other athlete to represent Brunei at the London Olympics. He will be the first swimmer from the country to swim in the Olympics.

The Sultanate's participation at the Olympics has been made possible courtesy of universality places that the world governing bodies of athletics and swimming, IAAF and FINA respectively, have opened to countries that have no qualified athletes.